Marrin's Bookshop

Item Description

8vo. 7.75 x 5.75 inches. 111 pp. Bound in original green cloth, gilt, in unclipped pictorial dust wrapper, which has sunning and foxing on rear wrapper and edge wear, including loss at head and tail of spine. Flyleaves browned and edges foxed; otherwise a very good copy. Illustrated by 72 pages of engravings and by vignettes in text. Decorated by artist's device on title page. An early collection of the work of Robert Gibbings, Irish born artist and author, noted for his work as a wood engraver and for his travel and natural history books. He was one of the founder members of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1920, and was influential in the revival of wood engraving from this time. As owner of the Golden Cockerel private press, 1924-33, he published seventy one titles and was in 1936 appointed to a part-time lecturing post at the University of Reading. Thomas Balston (1883-1967) as a director of the Duckworth publishing house 1921-34, promoted and published the work of British wood engravers, including Gibbings (Selborne, British Wood-Engraved Book Illustration 1904-1940, p. 119-29, 140-142, 216-227).